Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If your DP cheated, would you automatically stop loving them?

81 replies

GnTx3 · 14/09/2023 20:40

Hi,

This came from a conversation I had with a friend last week. She said that not only would she not forgive her DP if they cheated, but she wouldn't love them anymore. As in, immediately. All love, gone from that point.

I said I definitely couldn't forgive and am pretty sure that would be it, in terms of the relationship, but I can't imagine that the love would just stop. Yes, I would feel differently about them. I suspect I would hate them actually and the love certainly wouldn't be the same, but it wouldn't be gone entirely....I don't think, anyway.

Am I unusual for feeling like this? I've never really thought about it before this conversation.

YABU - Yes, the love would stop

YANBU - No, I would still love them as well as hating their guts

OP posts:
SisterAgatha · 15/09/2023 12:00

I’m in the minority but I would forgive. I can see how it happens and humans make mistakes. It takes a lot for me to stop loving someone and it takes a long time to grow that love, you can’t just stop it in one moment.

afaloren · 15/09/2023 12:35

I wouldn’t stop loving them, that’s why it would hurt so much. The trust would be gone though and I think that’s almost as important as love.

Brightandshining · 15/09/2023 12:43

I honestly don't know. I think it woukd depend on the context. It woukd definitely shatter a lot of trust and love.. but would it completely remove it? I dont know. I think id just play it by ear. I've known my husband a very long time, he's my closest friend. He was before we were even together romantically too and he had other girlfriends and I other boyfriends when we were just friends.
I think the crux of the matter would be if I really believed he still loved me and it was a stupid mistake or if I felt it was some ongoing betrayal.. I mean either way the relationship might dissolve anyway.. but I think id be more likely to try and save it in some contexts.

Brightandshining · 15/09/2023 12:47

For instance
Say we were going through a rough time and were quite alienated from each other.. maybe he's under a lot of stress, a close relative has died.. maybe he's gone out to party and got very wasted and ended up hooking up with a stranger who showed him some attention.. and he's told me about it immediately...
Yes I think id try and stay in the relationship and work through it.

Say he's been having an affair for years with a work colleague behind my back and lying to me about it whilst playing happy families with me.
No. Absolutely no way. Id leave and that would be that.

OhmygodDont · 15/09/2023 13:19

Yup even without sex. Just messages. Love dead gone down the drain. It’s the betrayal.

Marblessolveeverything · 15/09/2023 13:38

For me - to love someone it comes down to trust. If I don't trust someone - i cant love them.

annonymousse · 15/09/2023 14:14

I still felt love for a long time after my ex left me for OW but as time passed I realised I was in love with the man I thought he was. Whenever I had contact I felt a surge of grief and shock that he looked the same but was a stranger. I used to describe it as invasion of the body snatchers. Eventually I achieved indifference but it took a few years.

borninthe80esss · 15/09/2023 14:21

With me the love lingered for a while but the relationship was over the second I found out. Any time I found myself with feelings of love and forgiveness I pictured him sat on his phone texting me he was going to be late but love you! Whilst sat in some other woman's bed. This killed of all loving feelings and made me hate him with an anger like no other.

BarbedButterfly · 15/09/2023 14:25

I did. I tried anyway, but I just wasn't the same after that. I have always been a bit like that though, once someone does something that hurts me deeply it just switches off

NeunundneunzigHorseBallonz · 15/09/2023 14:27

I would immediately lose all respect for him and also I would know that when he was pursuing another woman and nurturing that relationship where they ended up in bed, he wasn’t loving me.

RedPony1 · 15/09/2023 14:33

i cancelled my wedding 6 months before, because i found out my fiance was cheating. I kicked him out, and my feelings of disgust and hatred overwhelmed any love i had for him.

I'd NEVER forgive a cheater - it just makes them more careful next time not to get caught.

Ibizafun · 15/09/2023 15:40

Whatever the reason for cheating, unfortunately the trust would have gone so even if I understood, there wouldn't be much hope.

HollaWithDaRisinSound · 15/09/2023 15:58

I dont think it is possible to turn love off like a tap

Bouledeneige · 15/09/2023 22:32

The love stopped for me. He didn't pause before hurting me beyond any hurt I ever felt and he wasn't the man I thought he was. No integrity. I went to counselling to work it out but as he could never really own the truth he had no chance of restoring my faith in his soul. So maybe the live could have come back but it's hard to say. It was lost.

PeloMom · 15/09/2023 22:34

I don’t think anyone knows for sure until this situation actually happens. You may think you’d feel one way and if it happens feel in a way you never thought possible…

SherbetLemonn · 15/09/2023 22:39

I don’t think I could possibly say. I love him so deeply, it feels as though he’s in my very bones, so I cannot imagine just instantly falling out of love, just like that. It would shatter the illusion of who I thought he was, definitely, as I just can’t imagine him cheating on me so I suppose that would have a great effect on my feelings.. but then, I’ve never been cheated on by someone I feel so deeply for, so who’s to say? I hope I never find out.

OhcantthInkofaname · 15/09/2023 22:40

Love the person you thought they were .
Disgust at the person they are.

ConsuelaHammock · 15/09/2023 22:44

I don’t know how I’d feel! I’m sure anyone knows 100% until it happens to them.

NoSaladThanks · 15/09/2023 22:49

I wouldn't be IN love with him any longer, no. The trust, respect and indeed my marriage would be gone.
There would be no coming back from that.
Would I still love him? Probably for a while after yes, but I wouldn't be in love with him any longer.
I hope I'm never in that position to put it to the test, and I feel really sorry for those who have.

TheMountainsCall · 15/09/2023 22:51

I think this is the kind of situation you don't know what you'd do or feel unless it happens. It hasn't happened to me but, earlier in my marriage, I'd have been like, that's it, end of marriage, no coming back. I've been married a lot longer now and my feeling is that it would change our marriage but not end it. At this point, as long as everything else was the same and it was companionable, I think I'd stay married but our sex life would end. I couldn't sleep with someone I can't trust. We could remain cohabiting friends though.

BellaAndDave · 15/09/2023 22:58

My first husband cheated, when I found out everything died as soon as a I knew what he’d done. I left the next morning and never looked back, there is no excuses for cheating in my book. He begged, he cried, he got angry, he apologised over and over again but I felt absolutely nothing for him knowing he’d cheated. I don’t know how some women can have sex with anyone who’s cheated on them tbh, there’s no way I’d have had mine talk to me let alone touch me again.

caringcarer · 15/09/2023 23:01

Shirtella · 14/09/2023 20:46

It dawned on me, pretty shortly after I found out, that the man I loved didn’t exist.

The man I loved wouldn’t cheat on me. The man I married did.And I didn’t love that man.

This. Once you know they cheated on you it makes you feel physically sick. I vomitted. It dawned on me he couldn't love me to do that. At that point I felt very angry that he had made our marriage of 20 years fail.

theawkward · 15/09/2023 23:06

I think I’d be so hurt and upset that I would question everything including if I could still love someone who did that .
Dh has told me if I ever cheat he would forgive me immediately and never mention it again (which I was quite shocked at but then I thought perhaps he says that as he is confident I wouldn’t ever cheat ??!)

SandyY2K · 15/09/2023 23:34

*@Poptones

I do think that when a woman cheats it's because she's lost respect for her dh or just really bored or unhappy.

This isn't necessarily true.

Some women just like cheating because of the excitement. They're serial cheaters like men.

There's an adultery forum I read and I connect with the members ...and it has a many women as men on it.

Some will say they love their husbands, but they love having an AP too.

MissingMoominMamma · 15/09/2023 23:37

I realised that he wasn’t who I thought he was, and who I thought he was was who I loved.

He was weak. His weakness didn’t make me hate him, it made him ridiculous in my eyes.

The love never came back.